


Nighthawks

by kmo



Category: Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2012-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:47:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmo/pseuds/kmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is human nature to want what we absolutely cannot have. Carmen hires a call girl to fulfill a very specific fantasy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Automat

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: WOEICS is the property of not moi.
> 
> Author's Note: I started writing this story awhile ago but hesitated to post it because of its risque content. While sex figures into the story, it's not a PWP. If you like the story, please review- it will give me the encouragement to finish it.

Strange, to be able to pinpoint a moment that changes your entire life.

I was not doing anything special when I received a call from my boss late one Wednesday afternoon. I say " boss," but "madam" would be a more accurate description. You could call me an escort, but when all is said and done, let's face it, I'm a whore. Albeit one with a fancy liberal arts degree and a spacious Soho loft. The things a girl will do for exposed brick.

I answered the phone to hear Diana's familiar London drawl; "Alex, darling, are you still free on Friday? I have a new client for you."

"I guess that would depend on the client." I was feeling quiet flush at the moment, hardly desperate for new business.

"You are really, really going to want to take this one. Trust me." I could hear her take a drag of her cigarette through the phone. "Businesswoman, thirtysish. Bloody gor-geous. With deep pockets." The latter, of course, being most important to Diana, as she stood to gain a percentage of whatever I made.

"A woman? Wouldn't Mel or Vanessa be better?" It was not sexual incompatibility that made me hesitate; I had nothing against sleeping with women. But usually my clients were men, sometimes the occasional couple.

"I told her that. But she wants you." Another pause, another drag of cigarette. "She offered to triple your fee. Don't be an ass, Alex dear."

Believe it or not, I was actually somewhat flattered. "Never fear, Diana, I'll take the job. Any special requests?"

"Good girl. She'll come to your flat, you know the drill. Oh, she did ask that you look somewhat natural, not overly made up. I told her you play the girl next door quite well."

I do, actually. "It's a date."

************************************************************************************************************************************************

I was a bit nervous waiting for Sofia Calderon's arrival; I always am when meeting a new client. The things that raced through my head were actually not too far afield from the feelings most people have on a first date. Namely, thoughts of the "will she like me?" variety. Most of my clients liked me very much…but occasionally some didn't. And rarely, some could be violent. Diana was adept at filtering out the majority of the sick tickets, but she was not infallible. There was always a risk.

I enjoyed the risk. Sometimes more than I enjoyed the money.

The intercom beeped and a polite female voice floated out, "Alex O'Keefe? This is Sofia."

"Hold on, I'll buzz you in," I called. I hated intercoms, they made for awkward first impressions. I looked in the mirror and gave myself a final once over. "Natural" was such a broad suggestion. After trying on a dozen different outfits, I had finally decided on a low cut emerald top that set off my eyes and a pair of blue jeans that hugged my every curve. Because you couldn't get more All-American than Levis.

A gentle knock announced my client's arrival. I opened the door to reveal a tall woman with the most striking blue eyes. "Hi. I'm Alex, please come in," I said, a bit shyly as she crossed the threshold.

"Sofia," my companion extended a cool hand then followed me into the loft, taking in the lay of the land. I had a suspicion those intelligent blue eyes didn't miss a thing. "Very nice place you have here, Alex."

"Thank you. Can I get you anything? Grey Goose…Glenlivet…I make a killer dirty martini…."

"Just a glass of wine. Red, if you have it." Dressed in a navy blue suit, dark hair pulled back in a sleek French twist, Sofia seemed every inch the starched businesswoman. Her posture was unflinchingly straight, her face guarded. She looked like she needed a drink. It also looked like I had my work cut out for me.

I returned with two glasses of a spicy Shiraz and handed one to Sofia. "Cheers, then."

She clinked glasses with me and replied, "To a pleasurable evening." We locked eyes over the rim of our glasses and I felt a growing spark of desire; she was every bit as bloody gorgeous as Diana had promised. Too quickly, she tore her eyes away from mine and gestured to the paintings on the wall. "Did you do these? They're very good."

It was nice that she noticed. My clients rarely did. "Thanks. I painted them in college."

Sofia waved a manicured hand toward my personal favorite, a girl sitting alone in a Starbucks with laptop and coffee. "Your style is a little postmodern meets Edward Hopper," she commented, with approval.

"You flatter me. But yes, I'm something of a Hopper fan. Do you like art?" I inquired. A simple question.

The mysterious Sofia smiled a little. "I do. It's my business. I acquire collectibles…antiquities…sometimes art."

"Sort of like an antiques dealer?"

"Something like that," she replied vaguely, her face hidden by the shadows of the recessed lighting.

The way she looked triggered a flash of recognition, like something out of a half-remembered dream. "Sofia, I'm sorry, but you look so familiar. Are you an actress or something?"

"I bet you say that to all your clients."

"I'm serious," I laughed. "I could swear I've seen you on TV."

She turned to me, looking slightly bemused. "I'm not usually an actress, no. But yes, I have been on TV."

Maybe it was the Antiques Roadshow, I thought to myself. Sofia did not offer to elaborate more and I knew that to pry would not work in my favor.

Popular opinion holds that what I do here is just about sex. Well, it is about sex. But the people who come here are always looking for more than that. They come seeking fantasy. Or control. Sometimes fantasies of control. Watching Sofia Calderon gracefully prowl my apartment, I wondered which one it was for her.

Finally, my client settled on the leather couch beside me. She drained her glass and looked far away and tired. "Can I get you another?" She shook her head. "You look tense, let me help you relax." I removed her suit jacket and set it aside, the wool so sheer it felt like silk. I gestured for her to turn around and lean against me. For the hell of it, I removed the pins holding back her hair, letting it fall thick and lush down her back. It was so wild and incongruous compared to the buttoned-up rest of her. I began to softly massage her shoulders and neck. There was a quite a bit of tension there. It made me glow with satisfaction to feel my client gradually give in to my touch, closing her eyes, letting out a small sigh. But when I bent to plant a kiss on the sensitive skin near her collarbone, she recoiled as if stung.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, concerned but calm.

My companion took a deep breath and looked at her hands. "I don't usually do this," she told me, her voice thick with emotion.

I've heard that one a hundred times before. "You don't usually do this with high-priced call girls, you mean."

She looked at me, her face inscrutable, and said altogether too nonchalantly, "I don't usually do this with anyone." She paused a beat, trying to rationalize. "I travel a lot. For work. It makes it hard. And I'm in a delicate position, I need to be discreet…"

So it was control for this one.

I touched my fingers to her full red lips to silence her. "There's no need to be afraid. I'm very discreet," I said as I swung one blue-jean clad leg over to straddle her lap.

She didn't protest, just muttered, "I'm not afraid."

"Good," I purred back, cupping her head in my hands, and tilting her head up for a long, languorous kiss. Sofia responded, slowly at first, then with growing ardor, her fingers running through my short red hair. When we broke apart, her bright eyes had grown dark with desire. Her long, tapered fingers rested on the planes of my face and I had the feeling she was looking right through me, searching for someone who wasn't there.

"I shouldn't be doing this. It's not right," she said, and I could hear both guilt and longing in her voice.

I wanted to help. And, strangely, I wanted her. So I began kissing her again in earnest, brushing my breasts against hers, trailing my lips up the side of her neck. "A lot of things aren't right. But we do them anyway," I whispered into her ear.

And then her resistance seemingly snapped, and she kissed me forcefully, her tender lips bruising mine, arms wrapping around me and pulling me closer. I was stunned when she picked me up in one fluid movement and carried me to my bed as if I weighed nothing at all. I had no idea she was so strong.

Beneath Sofia's chilly exterior beat the heart of a very passionate woman. Pushed past her breaking point, she made love with a raw intensity that was nearly violent.

I woke in the morning to find my bed was cold and empty, as if she had never been here at all. A look in the mirror revealed bruises on my arms and other mementos strewn across my chest and neck. I would be wearing turtlenecks for the rest of the week. Thinking back on the evening's activities, I noted with satisfaction that Sofia would, too.

And on my kitchen table, an unexpected token of remembrance: a single rose, red as blood.


	2. Nighthawks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day at the museum, a night in San Francisco. Moments of connection in the world of strangers. Carmen-as-Sofia falls deeper into the fantasy she has created.

I didn't really know whether or not I'd see her again. She was a strange one, an odd mixture of ice and fire. So I went about my business, spent Sofia's money, and saw my other clients.

Some days after our first encounter, I turned on my computer and typed "Sofia Calderon" and "antiques" into a search engine. Nothing. I tried a few more combinations, still nothing. I really hadn't expected anything different. So, Sofia Calderon was not her real name. It hardly mattered- Alex O'Keefe wasn't my real name either.

A month later Diana called and told me Ms. Calderon had again requested my services. And would I be willing to meet her at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Saturday afternoon?

I was a bit surprised, because Sofia seemed too conflicted to become a regular despite the depths of her desire. But, more surprised that I had read her motivations wrongly. "Meet me at the art museum" signaled this was not about control after all. This was a fantasy. My role in it, I couldn't yet say. But the challenge of discovering my role, that was always a thrill for me. A bit like playing detective.

It was a bright day, warm for early March, when she met me on the marble steps of the Met. I loved this time in the city, the world beginning to thaw. Sofia smiled carefully when she saw me approach, then pulled me close for a short kiss on the lips. "Good to see you," she told me. She sounded like she meant it.

"Likewise," I replied. "So, what did you want to see at the museum? I've always liked the Egypt room."

"There's a special exhibit on Hopper and the Ashcan school," she paused and handed me a ticket. "I thought maybe you'd like to go."

"I'd love to." Her face brightened at having pleased me. Oh yes, this was definitely a fantasy of some kind.

I fell in line behind her and walked up the marble stairs through the grand edifice of the main entrance. Sofia was dressed differently today, black trenchcoat over a plum colored dress, looking for all the world like any other urbane New Yorker. Her beautiful long hair was down. Overall, her manner was much more at ease than I remembered. She, too, had thawed since last we met.

I've been to the Met before, mostly in college, and the place is an absolute maze. But Sofia got us to the exhibit room in record time; after making a quick detour through the medieval armor and the French Impressionists, we were there. My companion frowned to find the exhibit so crowded, but I don't know what she expected on a Saturday knew a lot about the various artists and would tell me funny stories and obscure anecdotes about their personal lives. Even though art was an interest of mine, trying to keep pace with her intellectually was exhausting.

After making a tour around the room, we at last arrived in front of the star attraction, _Nighthawks_ , a masterpiece of light and shadow.

"I wonder if Hopper knew his painting of four people sitting in a diner would become so popular," I mused lightly.

Sofia gazed at the painting and her blue eyes dimmed a bit. "Well, the feeling here is very real, I think. A stolen moment of connection in a world of strangers. A haven of safety in an urban jungle."

I wondered if we were just talking about the painting anymore. "You sound like you live your life on the run," I said, only half-teasing.

Her eyes burned with blue fire but her voice was smooth as silk. "We're all running from something." Given my own history and what I chose to do with my life, I was inclined to agree.

"I know _Nighthawks_ is the big attraction, but my favorite is actually this one." I pointed her toward _Chop Suey_ , an earlier work. It featured two women in cloche hats sitting in a Chinese restaurant. The bright reds and woodsy greens, so vivid, always drew me in. It was like seeing an old friend.

"Really? What intrigues you so?" Sofia sounded oddly delighted. Suddenly it was as if we were back in art history seminar junior year, and I had been called upon to impress the professor with my insight.

It's a delicate balance in my line of work, what to keep guarded and what to give away. You can't manufacture the illusion of intimacy out of thin air- you must give something of yourself. Sharing my opinions on a favorite painting seemed harmless enough at the time. "I guess it's the ambiguity, it makes it seem so true to life. You don't know what they're talking about. Are they sad or happy? You have to imagine. And they seem to mirror each other, but they could be anyone. Friends or enemies? Sisters…"

"Or lovers?" Sofia finished and favored me with a seductive glance. She caressed my wrist with her thumb, causing my pulse to leap in response to her touch. "I think I've had enough of the museum today, haven't you?" Said in that rich, velvety voice of hers, it wasn't much of a question.

She led me by the hand through the crowd until we reached a heavy door marked EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. "Do Not Enter, Alarm Will Sound" a sign proclaimed in bold red letters. "Wait, we can't go through there. We'll set off the alarm."

Sofia looked altogether too pleased with herself, the proverbial cat about to eat the canary. She took what looked like a credit card out of her purse, swiped it and then punched a combination into the keypad with speed and finesse, as if she did it every day. The door swung open without a sound. Seeing my look of amazement, my elegant client explained, "I'm something of a regular here. Part of my work."

I smiled. "You were showing off." I'm not going to lie, it was a bit of a turn on.

She smiled, too. "A little. But leaving through the front door…it's just so passé."

We returned to my apartment and sex with Sofia could not have been more different in the bright light of day. She was slow, solicitous and tender. As if this was indeed a first date and not an encounter bought and paid for. It was all part of her fantasy, I knew.

After she had showered and dressed to leave for a pressing business engagement, my curiosity got the better of me. "So, who is she to you? This woman I'm supposed to be."

Sofia just stared at me, as if slapped. If looks could kill, I'd be on my way to St. Vincent's in an ambulance.

"If I wanted to talk, I'd see a shrink," she responded icily.

My temper flared. "And- pardon my French- if you just wanted to fuck, you wouldn't need to pay me a small fortune."

My client clenched her fists and I wondered if she was actually going to hit me. But to my surprise she just nodded in appreciation, "Touché." She strode over to my liquor cabinet and availed herself of the strongest spirit I owned. Straight no chaser.

"Is it that she doesn't like women?" I asked mildly. I couldn't think of another reason.

Sofia sank down on the lavender duvet beside me and let out a long sigh. "Honestly, I have no idea." She chose her words with great deliberation, the way some people select fine wines. "The young woman in question is someone I work with. A relationship with her would be highly inappropriate."

"So, you're her boss?"

"No, we don't work at the same organization. We are competitors," a lengthy pause, a sip of liquid courage. "I used to work for her company, but left years ago to…start my own firm. She's risen in the ranks to acquire the job I once had. And I'm fairly certain she despises me."

"She hates you because you left your job?" I had no idea the antiquities trade could be so cutthroat.

Her mouth gave an ironic quirk. "There's rather more to it than that."

"Are you in love with her?"

My mysterious and beautiful client laughed half-heartedly, "For my sake, I certainly hope not."

"But how could she not fall for you? You're gorgeous and cultured and rich. And nice," I added, almost as an afterthought.

"I'm not always nice," she confessed, reaching out to smooth my hair. "If you really want to please me, think more center forward and less Kappa Kappa Gamma. The temper, though, that was nearly pitch perfect."

"Until next time," she said, before sweeping out the door.

As darkness crept through my loft's large windows, I was struck by how bereft my rooms seemed in the wake of her departure, like the sun had disappeared behind the clouds. I thought of calling a friend, but the burden of my own double life wore heavy on me. How did it happen, that I, who had a dozen lovers, had come to feel so lonely? True moments of connection in this world of strangers had become all too few and far between.

***************************************************************************************************************************

Days turned to weeks. March became April. And then, again when I least expected it, an invitation to San Francisco for the weekend from the woman who had quickly become my favorite client. She flew me first class and sent a car service to pick me up at the airport, the kind of little luxuries that were their own acts of seduction.

I had assumed the driver would take me to a hotel downtown where I could freshen up after my long flight. But to my chagrin, he told me he had orders to drop me off directly at the restaurant where Ms. Calderon would join me for dinner. I hurriedly applied makeup and fixed my hair in the backseat. For all I knew, she wanted me to look travel-weary.

I believed you could tell a lot about a person by the restaurant they chose. Would Sofia go for something elegant, exclusive and French- the safe choice? Hip, deconstructed, trying-too-hard Asian fusion? Pretentious farm-to-table bistro where even the table salt was local and organic?

I was pleasantly surprised that she picked a well-known steakhouse. Rich red leather banquettes and polished wood paneling evoked a retro glamour; Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack would have been completely at home. Sofia, too, seemed to have picked up on the establishment's masculine swagger, draping an arm around me possessively as we were escorted to our table.

She was the embodiment of casual luxury, tailored slacks and a fine gauge Oxford shirt, open wide to reveal a necklace of dark coral beads and the barest hint of décolletage.

"I like your necklace. That color…the red…it really suits you."

Sofia gave a low chuckle behind her menu. "Thank you. I know."

We ordered- she, the filet mignon, rare. And I…well, I normally would have chosen a salad, but somehow I doubted the athletic woman of Sofia's fantasies worried about watching her weight. So I opted for tuna tartare. Healthy, yet still filling. My companion's eyes sparkled with hidden amusement at my efforts at role playing.

"Save room for dessert, their chocolate cake is unparalleled." Her beautiful Prussian blue eyes sparked as she told me, "This is a night for indulgence."

And she did seem to be living that commandment to the hilt this evening. Watching her remorselessly cut into that bleeding steak made me quiver in anticipation, remembering how she had once ravenously devoured me. Sofia gave off a bold, powerful aura tonight. She had the kind of self-possession I had seen before on captains of industry and sitting senators. My client's identity remained a mystery, but she was undoubtedly a Big Deal.

And then she asked a question that no powerful man would ever have cared to ask. "So, have you painted anything lately?"

"No, not really." It was a bit of a sore subject with me.

"Is it time you lack or inspiration?"

I bit my lip and tried to not let my temper get the best of me. I knew where this conversation was headed and I didn't like it. "Is this where you tell me I'm wasting my potential?"

"Are you?" Her words sliced into me, sharp as the steak knife she held in her hands.

I swallowed. "You don't want to hear about my problems. They don't make for romantic conversation."

She softened somewhat and said, "Try me. People so rarely tell me anything." When I didn't respond she prompted, "Let me guess. You became an escort so that you could support yourself as an artist."

And I knew then, that this sudden desire to mentor and advise me was part of her fantasy, too, but I gave in and told her anyway.

"Yes, that was how it started." I did some live modeling for classes and then one day, got asked to do more than that. One thing led to another, I met Diana, and I had been transformed from typical co-ed to scarlet woman. "But somewhere along the line…I just lost focus. It's like I started at point A to get to point B…and here I am at point Q. It's not just the money or all the free time…" I shook my head, "You are not going to believe this, but what I do…I know people think it's wrong, and more than that, it's illegal…but I sometimes like that it's wrong."

I was afraid to meet Sofia's eyes for fear she would look disgusted at my admission. But while her expression was unfathomable, her voice was full of unexpected compassion. "I understand. The thrill of the illicit is more potent than most people realize. And it can be quite…addictive."

"Like heroin," I admitted. "So…you don't judge me for what I do?"

"Your other clients judge you? That's a bit hypocritical, isn't it?" She flashed me a wicked grin before turning sober. "I'm in no position to judge anyone, Alex. But may I offer you some unsolicited advice?"

"Okay."

I thought she would tell me something cliché like "get out while you're young" or "be safe." But instead she just looked at me earnestly and said, "Keep painting."

Later that evening, we tumbled out of the restaurant into San Francisco's moonlit streets, both a bit giddy and slightly tipsy. Sofia grabbed me firmly around my waist and spun me into her arms, all the better to favor me with a kiss that set every nerve ending ringing. She embraced me like that, boldly, right on the busy sidewalk, without a care. And to my surprise, no one gawked or stared at us; it was that kind of town.

We walked arm and arm together in the mild night air, past sights that were familiar to her and foreign to me. Like something out of a movie, we hopped a cable car and rode down the most crooked street I'd ever seen. Flowers were in full bloom there that not yet even begun to bud back on the east coast. "It is always spring in San Francisco," Sofia told me.

My beautiful and enigmatic client had taken pains with this date, it was clear. More than our earlier encounters, she really embraced and got lost in her own fantasy. And there were moments where I found myself getting lost along with her, forgetting that I was a mere placeholder absorbing the love and passion meant for someone else. A dangerous thing, for someone in my line of work to forget.

But the truth was, I couldn't remember the last time I'd had so much fun, on the clock or off. The artist in me delighted at the play of texture and color as we walked down a hilly street filled with Victorian painted ladies. "It's lovely here. I almost don't want to leave," I sighed.

Sofia smiled one of her sad crooked smiles. "I know. Me too." My companion's eyes fixed on a spot off in the distance. "I used to live here, you know."

 _Ah._ So this was all an evening of what might have been.

Sofia shook her long dark hair and her melancholy melted in an instant, replaced by a mischievous smirk. We had stopped in front of an old fashioned apartment building. She pulled out a key and held open the door for me. "My humble abode. One of them anyway."

Upstairs was a tastefully decorated if somewhat nondescript flat. The furnishings looked like a display out of a shop window and had about as much personality; no photographs or mementos were anywhere to be seen. But honestly I didn't get much of a good look at the décor before my companion playfully dragged me off to her bedroom.

Despite what seemed on the surface to be passionate abandon, there was something she held back when we were together. In bed, especially, it was like Sofia was always on her best behavior. I knew- because it was my job to know- that there was some desire she dared not speak aloud.

And as I lay there naked, wrapped in soft cotton sheets and the tangle of her long limbs, I again wondered what had driven her here. People came to me to find what they lacked; so the shy and inhibited sought exhibition, the dominant and controlling to abandon their burdens of control. From what I could tell, Sofia longed to be tender and kind. Who the hell was she in her waking life that she could not express such easy, innocent things?

In the morning when I awoke, my companion was already dressed and about to leave. She brought me a cup of coffee and a flaky croissant and instructed me to drop off the key with super when I left for the airport. "Your flight's not until 7, so take some time and enjoy the sights," she suggested.

I blew on my coffee and took a small gulp. My head was still foggy from the revelry of the night before. "You're not staying then."

She shook her head. "I can't." _Or won't._

"Oh. Will I see you again soon?" My question betrayed a neediness that was atypical for me.

Sofia reached out to stroke my cheek before kissing me on the forehead. "Yes, I'm afraid you will." Her touch made me flush all over, but the tone of her voice sent shivers down my spine.


	3. Summer Interior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter in particular contains some light bondage and coarse language.

It's one of those strange quirks of life that big or exciting or terrible things never seem to happen when we expect them to happen. No, true disaster blindsides you, hits you like a bus on an otherwise boring Tuesday when you thought everything was going well. At least that's how it happened to me.

About two weeks after I got back from San Francisco, I found myself engaging in my normal weekday afternoon ritual: painting my nails and catching up with my "stories" on TV. They were just about to reveal who was the father of Veronique's evil twin's secret love child when the local news cut into the broadcast.

(You know, I never did find out who was the father of that baby. After my own life turned into a soap opera, they kind of lost their escapist appeal.)

The perky Channel 11 anchorwoman announced, "We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this breaking news bulletin. At approximately 4:30pm today, notorious thief Carmen Sandiego broke in to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and made off with a painting in broad daylight."

I snorted. Carmen Sandiego had been pulling off robberies since I was a kid in Iowa with a training bra and braces. This was news?

But then they flashed the stolen painting up on the screen- two women sitting in a café, the colors and textures I loved so well. My jaw dropped; Sofia and I had just seen it.  _Weird_.

"The painting is Edward Hopper's  _Chop Suey_ , on special loan to the Met from a private collector. This is Carmen's first crime in the Big Apple since she stole the lions outside the New York Public Library last October, and her fifth break-in at this particular museum."

A picture of the master thief appeared on the screen: a beautiful woman dressed in cadmium red, with hair the color of old antimony. Her face was hidden except for one glimmering eye, a familiar and deep Prussian blue.

I nearly stabbed myself with my nail file.  _Antiquarian, my ass._

"We go now live to the scene of the crime where our own Kent Steele is interviewing the lead ACME detective on the Sandiego case. Take it away, Kent."

"Detective Ivy, where is ACME on this latest robbery? And why is this woman still at large after a nearly fifteen year crime spree?"

I completely tuned out whatever else the reporter said because I was totally fixated on the young woman beside him. Short red hair, green eyes; this woman could have been my sister. Actually, I have a sister, and Detective Ivy looked more like me than she does. She was taller and more muscular and I had more freckles, but the resemblance was uncanny.

And then suddenly it all clicked into place, like a brilliant piece of  _trompe l'oeil_.

My opposite number answered the reporter with authority and annoyance. "ACME is doing everything within its power to bring Carmen Sandiego to justice. I personally will not rest until she is behind bars. We are asking all citizens in the tri-state area to call in to our special hotline to report any suspicious VILE activity…"

I shut off the TV. I knew instinctively that Sofia…no,  _Carmen…_ would be on her way here. Soon. And I knew what she wanted.

A more moral person would have called that tip line. A smarter person would have just left town. But I was neither of these things, just a young and foolish girl who seemed to have broken rule number one in the escort handbook: never fall for a client.

Instead I went to my closet and exchanged the flirty sundress I was wearing for a tight fitting tank top, jeans and a pair of hiking boots that hadn't seen the light of day since a camping trip two years ago. Next went on a beat-up black leather jacket to complete my look. In the bathroom, I washed off the majority of my makeup, putting on just a touch of lip balm. Not an exact match, but pretty damn close. As the  _pièce de résistance_ , I retrieved a pair of handcuffs from my bedside table and tucked them into the back pocket of my jeans. I shut off the lights and watched and waited.

I fell into a kind of trance and lost all semblance of time. Minutes or hours later, I discerned a faint scratching at one of my loft's oversized windows and a pop as a pane of glass was removed. Lithe as an acrobat, a shadowy figure slipped through the opening and landed on my hardwood floors with two soft staccato clicks of her stiletto heels. I watched silently in the darkness as she sashayed over to my living room wall, lifted down one of my paintings, and hung  _Chop Suey_  in its place. The master criminal stepped back to admire her handiwork, smiling her vermillion smile, mistress of all she surveyed. And then I pounced.

With all the strength and agility I possessed, the sum total of every pilates class I had ever taken, I shoved Sofia-Carmen forward, sending her stumbling into my credenza. Quick as a flash, I grabbed the handcuffs from my pocket and restrained both arms behind her back, locking the metal around her slender wrists. "I've got you at last, Carmen," I breathed into her ear.

For a fraction of a second, I saw something that looked like genuine apprehension in those midnight blue eyes, quickly replaced by a ghost of a smile. "So you have, detective," she spoke in a voice that was both dark and sweet, like liquid chocolate. "Whatever are you going to do with me."

I wrenched her left arm back, digging in my fingers hard enough to leave bruises. "You've given me a lot of trouble over the years. But, finally I have you at my mercy." The words were a bit awkward, but I tried my best to sound natural, pitching my voice a little lower, trying to imitate the redheaded agent I had seen on TV.

I broke character slightly for a minute in hesitation. I was pretty sure this was what she wanted, but I needed to know for certain. There are conventions to be followed and I was, after all, a professional. "You do know what is going to happen here, tonight, don't you? And you consent?"

She turned to me, and said sardonically, "I don't really have much of a choice, do I?" I stared back at her thin-lipped and angry, as Ivy might have done. She sighed. "Yes, I consent."

And just to be sure. "And what signal will you give me to let me know you've had enough?"

A bark of sarcastic laughter. "You seriously consider yourself capable of even coming within a mile of my boundaries?"

Her mockery, for some reason, infuriated me. "In case you haven't noticed, you're not calling the shots tonight, Carmen. We do this my way, or we don't do it at all. Or perhaps you would prefer I just leave you here like this, a nice early Christmas gift for the ACME detective agency?"

She licked her lips. "Very well." And told me her safe word.

I pushed her back onto my mattress, removed her hat and loomed over her. In my line of work, I had felt sexy, wanton, and seductive plenty of times. But wrapped in Detective Ivy's persona was the first time I had ever felt tough or strong.

I looked into Carmen's blue eyes, where defiance had been replaced by an aching vulnerability. Where had all that famed bravado gone. I ran my thumb against her lower lip and felt her tremble; she wanted this so badly, it frightened her. Fitting for one so clever, so seemingly untouchable, that surrender would be the ultimate forbidden desire. Especially surrender to her beloved foe, the girl detective.

I kept her hands bound throughout our entire encounter. And somehow by binding her body, I freed her spirit. This time, she did not hold back or stifle her sounds of pleasure. It was a heady feeling, an intoxicating power to feel her body swell and writhe, yielding to my every touch. I brought her to the brink of release and back again, stopping just a centimeter short of the edge. After the fourth or fifth round of this little game, her frustration and impatience were palatable and hung in the air between us, a tangible third-party.

Pain I was pretty sure Carmen could handle; I could have whipped her until my own hands bled and not gotten anywhere. But pleasure… _that_  she had no defense for.

"Tell me," the master thief gasped, her voice hoarse, "how much longer do you intend to torture me in this fashion?"

"Why, until you've learned your lesson, Carmen." I leaned in so close so that my lips almost touched hers and said, "You've been doing this for more than a decade. Letting the cops get close to you, and just when they almost have you, dancing right out of their grasp. No one likes to be teased."

She was stubbornly, defiantly silent. But her blood sang to me all the same.

I ran my hand up her smooth thighs and began to stroke a  _very_  sensitive part of her anatomy. "If you want me to stop, you only have to say the word."

She actually blushed. "You can't be serious."

"I am," I said, pressing harder to drive my point home, causing her cry out. With my free hand I caressed her cheek and told her softly, more myself than Ivy, "For once in your life, give in."

She closed her eyes and I could read the inner struggle flicker across her face. " _Alamo_ ,"she whispered. A losing battle indeed. Almost instantaneously, I felt her shudder violently against me. Sympathetically, I felt it too, and rode it out with her, wave after wave.

But then, like a spell had been broken, I slumped down, drained. I no longer felt brave or in control, but physically and emotionally exhausted. Minutes, seconds later, a red-coated arm reached out to embrace me. I heard the handcuffs fall to the floor with a clatter.  _Ha_. Everyone knows that an encounter like this one is just the illusion of surrender; with Carmen Sandiego, it was the  _illusion_  of the illusion of surrender.

"Thank you," she told me in a half-broken voice, stroking damp strands of my red hair. I turned to look at her beautiful face, now marked by the tracks of silent tears. I didn't know what to say. Underneath all those layers of sophistication and wit and bravado, she was as raw and needy and human as anyone I've ever met. Maybe more so.

We lay together in the afterglow, breathing the same breath as the sun set on Manhattan. In those minutes, an entire new landscape of possibilities opened up before me, like an undiscovered country. I dozed a little, happy and comfortable in the safety of her arms. I awoke when my client or lover…I wasn't quite sure anymore…left and went to the bathroom. I heard the soothing sound of water running. When she came out, her clothes and hair looked immaculate but her face was colder than I'd ever seen it. It was like something had swung shut behind her eyes.

"I'm sorry I dropped in on you unannounced. I'll send a courier over to your office tomorrow with your fee, plus a little extra for the inconvenience," she said coolly, as if we were chatting about the price of blue chip stock instead of an evening of mind-warping sex.

"I don't want your money."

She arched a perfectly plucked brow and said cruelly, "This only works because I pay you, you know."

"Right. Of course," I choked on my words. Although she had metaphorically ripped my heart out and crushed it beneath her crimson heel, I was not going to cry. I was not.

Carmen fixed her trademark fedora upon her head and said from under the shadow of its brim, "We shouldn't see each other anymore. It's too dangerous."

"I thought you liked danger," I commented bitterly.

She shook her head and sounded sad, "Not this kind."

I knew then this was an act. Just another manifestation of the ambivalence that had been with us all along, since the first time we met. She didn't want to let me go, but she would force herself to do it anyway. I grasped for her gloved hand and pulled her down beside me. "Take me with you."

The world's most mysterious woman took off her glove and traced the contours of my face one last time. "And keep you beside me like a nightingale in a gilded cage?" She paused and said with finality, "No."

And the master thief rose and glided away from me, a raven on the wing, while my bones and muscles turned to lead, pinning me to my bed, unable or unwilling to chase after her.

She paused in front of  _Chop Suey_  and said thoughtfully, "In all the years I've been doing this, I've never once stolen for someone else."

"Yeah, well if you're going to leave, take that damn painting with you. I don't want it," I spat.

Carmen shrugged. "It's yours now."

"What the hell am I supposed to do with a stolen masterpiece?"

"Keep it, sell it, hand it over to the police. Whatever you like," she said, her tone as smooth as glass.

Before Carmen took her leave of me, she shared one final thought; "I meant what I said before about your art. Keep painting. To steal a masterpiece of yours one day would be a rare pleasure." And with a flash of a smirk and a tip of her hat, she took flight.

Seconds after she left, the tears I'd been holding back streamed forth like rain. The disappointment, the shock, the anger- it was all too much. In becoming someone else, I had never given more of myself to a client. I racked my brains, retraced all my steps with this woman and tried to understand why the hell I decided to follow her down this rabbit hole. It was a sad truth that the better I became at having sex for money, the worse I became at having sex for fun. And the more I was Alex the exclusive escort, the less I was the artistic girl with a dream. Somehow Carmen had offered me the irresistible opportunity to be both, and I fell for her completely.

I sat there sobbing on the carpet near my bed for quite some time, sipping on a toxic cocktail of self-pity and self-hatred. I might have stayed there all night had I been given the opportunity.

In the end, I was jolted back to reality by the rough music of police sirens and the percussion of the SWAT team breaking down my door. Someone on a megaphone shouted for Carmen Sandiego to come out with her hands up and I numbly buried my face in the bedsheets. There was no time to escape. I was a hooker who had aided and abetted Public Enemy Number One and there was a piece of stolen artwork hanging in my living room. To put it bluntly, I was good and truly fucked.

Officers in bulletproof vests swarmed my loft, inspecting every nook and cranny. I stayed on the floor, silently shaking with fear until a hand belonging to a gangly teenage boy gently pulled me to my feet. Then, a firm and serious female voice told me, "We're going to have to ask you to come along with us, Ms. O'Keefe."

I raised my eyes and met my double.

 


	4. Chop Suey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter in particular contains course language and sexual themes. Also, my story takes place about 3 years after the final episode of WOEICS. So, Ivy, Zack, Alex, etc are all legally adults.

ng. I also had yet to make my one phone call or use the bathroom. I was scared, almost too scared to think straight. On some level I had always known that it was possible to jail for what I did. But, working in the stratosphere of sex work lead to one feeling very insulated. The money and the well-heeled clients made me feel safe. The more I got away with it, the more it began to seem unlikely I would ever face any kind of reckoning for my crimes. I wondered if Carmen felt the same way.

The very thought the woman who had gotten me into this mess made me want to spit nails. If I wasn't very careful in the next few hours, I was going away for a very long time. Wasting precious time pining for a woman who clearly didn't give a damn for me wasn't going to keep me out of prison. How much ACME knew was impossible to tell. The trap of it was, to exonerate myself of being an accessory to robbery meant confessing to prostitution. I needed a lawyer. A good one.

The creak of a door hinge announced the arrival of my interrogators. They seated themselves opposite me: the lanky blonde guy from before, and, much to my dismay, his sister, my doppelganger. The brother spoke in a casual manner, "Ms. O'Keefe. Sorry to have kept you waiting. I'm Zack, this is Ivy, and, as you know, we're ACME detectives. We'd like to ask you a few questions about your association with Carmen Sandiego."

"I want a lawyer. Law-yer," I spat emphatically.

Detective Zack glanced at his sister, who merely glared in response. "Well, Alex…may I call you Alex? Under the American constitution you are guaranteed the right to an attorney. But, ACME operates extraterritorially. So, as our New York office is technically not on American soil, we don't have to provide you with one. And, before you ask, we can hold you indefinitely without charging you. This is going to go a lot better for everyone if you start cooperating with us." I had to hand it to this boy; no one has ever told me I was totally fucked in such a polite way before.

"Fine. What do you want to know?"

Zack gave me a warm and reassuring glance. Out of the corner of my eye, his sister snapped the cheap plastic pen she was holding in half, blue ink splattering her notepad like drops of blood. This wasn't good cop, bad cop; it was good cop and one extremely pissed off cop. Even though the air conditioning made it artificially cold in the interrogation room, I took off my leather jacket. Dressing like Detective Ivy's twin probably wasn't doing me any favors and I needed all the help I could get.

Zack handed his sister his pen and said, "Please explain how Chop Suey came to be hanging on the wall of your apartment."

"Carmen dropped it off there. I don't know why. I didn't know she was planning to steal it. I never met her before tonight." Some of that was a lie; the latter was technically the truth.

Then Ivy turned to me, her eyes the sickly, churning color of an Iowa sky before a tornado. "You're telling us you don't know Carmen Sandiego."

"Well, she's kind of a hard person to know," I quipped before I had the chance to think the better of it. Zack coughed and tried to swallow his laughter.

My remark made Detective Ivy's glare turn positively poisonous. "There's a lot about you that doesn't add up, Ms. O'Keefe," she said with undisguised venom.

Her brother pulled out a manila folder full of paper. He held up something I recognized as last year's tax return. "For example, according to these documents, you're a graphic designer making $40,000 a year."

I swallowed and tried to sound like someone with nothing to hide. "That's correct."

"But two years ago, you bought a renovated loft in one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods for $1.1 million. That's a lot of mortgage for a girl your age," the redhead commented.

"I'm frugal."

The tag teaming continued. "You say you're employed by a company, Olympia Management. But, the address you gave is just a post-office box in Alphabet City. And your bank records indicate that you get paid monthly from an offshore account in Antigua," Zack stated matter-of-factly.

"We're a small company. I'm not in charge of payroll." I murmured unconvincingly, feeling the sweat roll down by back despite the chill in the air.

Ivy slammed a plastic bag down on the metal table in front of me. "Know what this is?" I shook my head. "Human hair. Just got the results back from the lab. How in the hell did Carmen Sandiego's hair end up in your bed?" She snarled at me.

That was a question I could not evade. Ivy's words broke me, shattering the last of my patchwork resistance. I buried my head in my hands as tears sprung to my already stinging eyes. They had me in a hundred different ways. Fraud, tax evasion, prostitution- take your pick, I was going to jail.

"Zack, Ms. O'Keefe looks thirsty, why don't you get her a soda?" I heard Ivy say in a quiet voice.

"But, we're just getting started!" He paused. "I know what you're thinking, sis…but c'mon, I'm nineteen, I'm old enough."

"Yes, you are. But if I have to have this conversation in front of my little brother, I will be in therapy for the rest of my life!" she half-barked, half-whispered.

"Okay, okay. I'll get some sodas. And some more pens." He turned to me and said softly before leaving, "I don't know who Carmen is to you, but she's not worth going to jail for." You're damn right she's not.

And now I was left alone to face my angry doppelganger; stronger, faster, more moral and with the power to send me to prison. To my surprise, Detective Ivy fished a tissue out of her pocket and handed it to me. "Here," she said, not unkindly. Her hands, I noticed, were rough and calloused, one of her thumbnails black and blue, whereas mine were small, soft and painted. So alike and so very different.

"Let's try this again. When did you first meet Carmen Sandiego?"

I took a deep breath. "About three, four months ago. A woman named Sofia Calderon made arrangements through Olympia to hire….my services. I didn't know she was Carmen until tonight. That's the truth, I swear."

Ivy looked puzzled. "Carmen wanted your services as a graphic designer?"

I gritted my teeth. I would not appear ashamed. "No. As a prostitute," I watched the detective's face betray her, eyebrows rising up to meet her hairline. "Olympia Management is an escort agency. We have offices in New York, London, Moscow and Tokyo."

My twin's face was pale. She was less of an experienced interrogator than I had originally thought. "So, you are not connected with VILE?"

"I'll give you the password for the website- look me up if you don't believe me. Who in the world did you think I was?"

She shook her head. "We thought perhaps you were running a VILE safehouse of some kind. Or that you were Carmen's….mistress," she pronounced uncomfortably.

"Quite a step down from that, I'm afraid."

"We'll see if your story checks out." Ivy switched tactics, turning to a blank sheet of paper. "How many times did she arrange dates with you?"

"Three times officially through my agency. Tonight she just showed up unannounced at my apartment."

"And you never suspected she wasn't who she said she was?" Her suspicion returned.

"A beautiful woman wanted to pay me obscene amounts of money to have sex with her. I didn't ask a lot of questions. It wasn't exactly a hardship," I deadpanned, enjoying the way my answer made a flush rise in the young woman's cheeks. "She said she was a businesswoman. Not too different from my usual clients. Just another wealthy, lonely, workaholic."

Ivy's lips narrowed into a thin line. "I suppose Carmen is bit of all those things," she said quietly.

The detective grilled me on all of the particulars. Where we went and what we did. How I was paid. Did I ever have contact with any of her associates. Did Carmen give any clues to future heists. I could have told her much more interesting details about the master thief- the taste of her lipstick, the texture of her skin against mine, the exact shade of her eyes when she was aroused. But these were not things the detective cared to ask about and I was not inclined to tell her.

"Three weeks ago she flew me to San Francisco for the weekend." Ivy's head snapped up, green eyes burning. "We went to a steakhouse. Someplace downtown."

"You're going to have to do better than that. The name?" She was relentless.

"A man's name. Italian. Giovanni's? No…Antonio's."

"I know it. And after dinner…."

"She took me back to her apartment. Don't ask me for the address or what neighborhood. It's the only time I've ever been there."

"Can you remember any landmarks? Street names?"

I thought back to that warm spring evening, so carefree and so far away. I pushed away the bittersweet memory to hunt for the facts the detective was hungry for. "We took a cable car…it was close to that street you always see in pictures of San Francisco. The one with all the pretty old houses."

Ivy blanched. "She took you to Alamo Square?"

"I don't know the name." And yet I do. The memory alone made my heart beat faster.

The detective bent and pressed a button on her wristwatch. A pink screen with a disembodied smiling head sprang out. Totally creepy. "Chief, can you bring up a picture of Alamo Square in San Francisco?"

The screen changed to a photograph of colorful Victorian houses all in a row, postcard-perfect. "Alamo Square is a neighborhood in San Francisco's Western Addition. Founded in 1857 by Mayor James Van Ness, it is known for its Victorian architecture and homes designed in the Queen Anne style…" the head narrated.

"That's it. The apartment was near there, just a few blocks away. Less than ten minutes on foot."

"Thanks, Chief. I'll take it from here." The head smiled and sunk back down into her wristwatch. The detective's rough hands scratched out the information on her notepad. "Didn't know she had a residence there. Probably doesn't anymore." Ivy paused, then slammed her fists on the table, making me jump in my seat. "I'm sorry. It's just that I live in Alamo Square. This is twisted, even for her. The things that woman is willing to do to screw with my head."

I'm pretty sure there are other parts of your body she'd be interested in screwing, too, I thought but didn't dare say aloud. "Detective, from my point of view, her feelings seemed genuine." Which turned out to be an equally incendiary thing to say, like using gasoline to put out a fire.

The redhead laughed bitterly and reeled on me. "You think you know Carmen? You think she's capable of being sincere about anything?" Her tone was obviously angry, but I detected embarrassment and a faint whiff of jealousy, too. "Look at how she treated you. The more I hear your story, the more it sounds like you were just a means to an end. Four months of prologue that ended with me finding a stolen painting in your apartment and hauling your ass in for questioning."

Hearing the whole affair put into such stark terms stung me, reopening an unhealed wound. I remembered the sinking feeling I got in my stomach when Carmen told me it was over. The museum, the painting, the timing of it all- pearls on a string, too perfect to be coincidental. What I had imagined lying in her arms a few short hours ago now seemed laughable and naïve under the harsh florescent lights of the interrogation room.

I was nothing but a pawn, the little metal shoe in the bizarre high-stakes game of Monopoly these two women played against each other.

But it was hard to reconcile Carmen the master manipulator with the woman who had surrendered. That was something I didn't think could be faked. Or maybe I was just dumb. I felt the tears well up again and cursed them. "She led me to believe there was something more. Do you ever just feel so fucking stupid?"

"Around Carmen? At least once a week." Ivy looked at me, judged and measured me. She had a kind of gravity about her, a moral certainty that was compelling, attractive for its very foreignness. When she spoke, her voice had a ragged edge to it, worn but not weak. "Carmen disappoints people, Alex. It's what she does."

So, we had both been wronged by the same woman. Me, once and Ivy, a thousand times. I wiped away my tears and continued my testimony. "Tonight she came without warning."

"What time?"

"I don't remember." I would have to tread carefully here. I had a smidgen of Ivy's sympathy and I did not want to lose it. "I thought it was best to just go along with what she wanted."

The detective swallowed my white lie like mother's milk. "Well, that's understandable. Carmen's a notorious criminal. You were at her mercy."

Not exactly. The truth could not have been more different, but the chances of Ivy believing it were slightly worse than my chances of winning the lottery. "Yeah," I agreed.

We went over a few more of the finer details. Finally, she set aside her pad and paper and told me formally, "You've cooperated very well, Ms O'Keefe, and given us a lot of new and valuable information. I have to say, you represent an unusual opportunity in the Sandiego case. Would you be willing to become a criminal informant?"

"What's that?"

"You'd be let go without being charged, allowed to keep doing what you're doing on the condition that you report on Carmen to us," she explained.

Not going to prison seemed like a wonderful idea. But, I wasn't sure about the spying part. "So, I'd be a mole."

The detective nodded, an odd smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You know, ACME has sent Casanova-type operatives after Carmen for years. She usually spots them within about two seconds and sends them packing. It's never been a very successful strategy."

They should have sent you. "Well, yeah, I'll do it. But I don't know how successful I'll be. She made it pretty clear she never wanted to see me again." I told the truth, hoping I hadn't just torn up my get out of jail free card.

Ivy thought for a minute. "Carmen can be fickle. And I doubt she's done with this particular game. I still think you're more valuable to us on the outside should she decide to start playing again. Besides, ACME doesn't have a vice squad," she said with a smirk. She rose from her chair and loomed over me. "I'm going to check all of this out. If I find out you've been lying, I won't hesitate to hand you over to the NYPD. If Carmen contacts you, you call us. Pronto. Or…"

"You'll throw me in jail. I got it."

She opened the door and I tasted freedom in the air, sweeter than a five-dollar caramel frappucino. "Follow me. We'll fill out some paperwork and then you're free to go."

We were halfway down the hall when Ivy's brother caught up with us, carrying the long forgotten about pens and sodas. He was pleased that I had flipped but looked alarmed when Ivy said she was letting me go. "Bad news. One of the local cops tipped off the media. There's about a dozen reporters and five TV stations outside. We'll have to take you out the back door."

It was past midnight. Every cell in my body ached with exhaustion and every synapse felt completely fried. Zack kindly ushered me out a side entrance and put me in a cab. As the taxi approached my apartment, I noticed camera crews and caution tape, the entire block lit up like Coney Island. Frustrated, I hurriedly shooed the driver away and told him to drop me off at a midtown hotel. I paid my outrageous cab fare, plunked down my credit card at the front desk, and collapsed fully clothed on the lumpy mattress. I would deal with the wreckage that was my life in the morning. But for now I would sleep.


	5. Girl at Sewing Machine

My mother used to tell me everything seems clearer in the morning. When I came to sometime around noon after what was the longest, absolute worst day of my life, I had only one thought in mind: flight.

I didn't dare face whatever tabloid frenzy was waiting for me back at my apartment. So, I showered, dressed, wolfed down some room service, and headed for the train station. En route, I made a brief detour at the ATM and withdrew a thick stack of bills, enough I hoped to last me a few months. I rode the Metro-North to the end of the line and paid cash for a mini-van that had seen better days. I didn't stop driving until I nearly reached the Canadian border.

I was, as they say in the gangster movies, "on the lam."

I used the rest of my money to rent a small cabin. It had no TV, no heat but a propane stove, and great southern exposure. It was peaceful and wooded and quiet. After about a hundred calls from nosy reporters and three weeping voicemails from my mother, I pitched my cell phone deep into the cool still waters of Lake Champlain. I didn't want to talk to anyone and I didn't want anyone to talk to me. There was nothing to do except paint. So, that's what I did.

I painted sunsets on the lake, pine trees, convenience stores at midnight, motels off the interstate. I painted scenes from my life in the city; people falling asleep in empty subway cars, fashionable types dining in jewel-box sized brasseries, street performers busking for money beside the Bethesda fountain. Most of all, I found myself painting scenes from my relationship with Sofia…Carmen. A beautiful figure stretched out naked in the moonlight in San Francisco. A shadowy woman slipping out through an open window. Two women smiling on the steps of a museum.

I went through an entire tube of cadmium red.

They say that pain is good for art. All the shame and heartbreak Carmen had dumped in my lap fueled a bender of creativity that carried me through the summer and into the fall. I wasn't about to cut off my ear and send it to her in a jar, but I had no problem letting the anger and sadness flow down my veins, through my paintbrush and onto the canvas. Maybe I had stopped painting before because I actually had nothing to paint about. Whatever my brief affair with the master thief had been, it had provided a well of artistic inspiration.

As more of my feelings ended up on the canvas instead of festering inside of me, my heart knit itself back together, and callused over stronger than before. Isolation and distance brought clarity. I realized that I had been hurting, lonely, sick at heart, long before Carmen Sandiego ever showed up on my doorstep. I wasn't going back to that life anymore, I couldn't. In my more charitable moments (which usually involved alcohol), I wondered if that had been part of Carmen's master plan all along. If, in saving me from a life of crime, she was trying to do for me what she could not seem to do for herself. But that was probably just the merlot talking.

When the leaves burnished crimson and bronze and I awoke to frost flowers on my window, I bowed to the inevitable, loaded up the van, and headed back to the city.

I had not much cause to think of Carmen or my former life in the busy months that followed. Upon returning, I sold my loft and rented a bright but grungy apartment in one of the edgier parts of Brooklyn. Within a few weeks, I had booked a gallery show at a trendy spot that had literally slammed the door in my face when I had shown up portfolio in hand four years ago. I might have been nothing then, but as the rumored ex-paramour of a notoriously uncatchable thief, well, I could write my own ticket. Sex sells and I should know. Whatever twinges of guilt I felt at exploiting my relationship with Carmen for personal gain, I stuffed down with utilitarian smugness. She had ruined my former livelihood; she could help me make a new one.

I'll never forget the last time I saw her. It was a grey winter day. The winds whipped through the streets and alleys, chafing my face and chilling me to the bone. I had trekked over to the gallery to pick up a stack of glossy postcards fresh from the printers- my show was only a month away. Enzo, the owner, had smiled wolfishly at me and I could see dollar signs light up behind his eyes. "We are going to make a lot of money together, principessa," he told me with a wink.

It had been a long, cold trip on various forms of public transportation from my drafty apartment to Enzo's posh gallery and back. In no hurry to be home, I slipped inside a favorite greasy spoon to warm myself with a quick, cheap cup of coffee. I wrapped my hands greedily around the steaming mug and soaked up its warmth. I was staring absently out the window, day dreaming of my show and new things to paint when a voice I never expected to hear again knifed me in the back.

"Hello, Alex," Carmen said, smoothly sliding in to the booth across from me.

I gasped and my blood pressure shot sky-high. I made a pathetic grab for my fork and knife, as if I thought they would be some kind of defense against her. Carmen chuckled and gently, but firmly, grabbed both of my wrists. "Now, now, all the silverware stays right where it is. I thought you might do me the favor of a chat." She cocked an elegant eyebrow "One fallen woman to another?"

Seething, I released my grip on the flatware. "What do you want?"

"First, coffee." She signaled the waitress, who promptly brought over a fresh cup. I watched her add the slightest bit of cream, turning the color from brown-black to dark cocoa. She didn't take sugar; it was hardly surprising. "You're a tough woman to find, Alex O'Keefe."

I snorted. "I'll take that as a compliment, coming from you."

She smiled and her blue eyes sparkled mysteriously. Today she was dressed in a luxurious wool coat that reached her ankles, the exact same shade as her long dark hair. The contrast gave her skin an ethereal glow in the pale winter light. I had almost forgotten how stunning she was. Almost. "I had to meet you here. ACME has surveillance on your apartment. And I watch them watching you," she explained matter-of-factly.

I wondered how long she had been keeping vigil over me. There were times over the summer when I would hear a car drive by late at night on my isolated dirt road, or notice the same red pickup parked in front of the gas station. I had chalked it up to paranoia at the time, well justified paranoia apparently. "I'm going to have to tell them that I saw you. It was part of the deal I made with ACME," I said cautiously.

"If you must," she replied, completely nonplussed. Carmen's sharp eyes flicked to my hands, fingernails broken, cuticles stained with paint. The cuffs of my ragged sweatshirt were dotted with flecks of Prussian blue and canary yellow. I needed a haircut and hadn't put on any makeup this morning, hardly the pampered girl of the year before. "I see you decided to take my advice."

I shrugged. "I'm painting again, yes. But, I paint for me."

"I'm glad," she said, the undisguised warmth in her tone nearly undoing me, plucking all the heartstrings I swore would never sound for her again.

"And you?" I found myself asking. "How are you?"

The thief took a sip of her coffee and frowned, then added a touch more cream. "I'm fine…I'm..." Carmen's elegant voice faltered and nearly broke. "Alex, I'm so sorry for how things ended between us." She closed her eyes as if to hide the pain in them from me. "My actions toward you were…unnecessarily cruel."

"They were." She looked so sorry and heartbroken, I found I didn't have it in me to make her feel any more guilty. "You did warn me that you weren't always nice," I said lightly.

At this, she almost smiled. "I wouldn't have let you go to prison for me. You have to believe that." She grew silent and twirled the spoon in her coffee cup absently. I looked at her, really looked at her, and saw that this past year had taken a toll. She was still undeniably beautiful and probably always would be. But there were darkened circles under her eyes and a hollow in her cheeks that weren't there when last we met. Finally, she spoke; "Alex, I owe you an explanation."

I shook my head. "You don't…"

"I do," she told me in a tone that left no room for dissent. "When I went to see you last year, I hoped to rid myself of what I considered an…unhealthy infatuation. I thought that if I indulged myself in this fantasy…just a little…I would soon grow tired of it, expose it for how silly it really was."

"I thought maybe you were bored with me…"

"No." She slid back into the booth and sighed, resigned. "I had forgotten...I did not expect..." It was hard to see her like this, in such undisguised agony, an unexplainable woman struggling to explain herself. "Never before have I felt so out of control. I can't have it." Her voice was sure and calm, but her eyes held the look of someone caught in a trap.

"You can't have it with Ivy, you mean," I ventured, hoping my tone did not betray the sudden jealousy I felt.

Carmen looked at me and once again said with that icy nonchalance of hers, "I can't have it with Ivy. I can't have it with you. I probably can't have it with anyone."

Fantasies of control. How right I was, from the first moment I saw her. And then it all became sickeningly clear. I was not a pawn in a game between the thief and the detective; Ivy and I were both pawns in the game Carmen played against herself. It was a painful thing to know. "You have a remarkable talent for self-destruction, Carmen," I said quietly.

"So people keep telling me."

I continued with my own small deduction. And I took no pleasure in being right. "You decided that you couldn't have either of us…so you made sure neither of us would want you."

The thief said nothing, just stared back at me with this unfathomable look, and her silence was confirmation enough. "The game at least has never been sharper, so that is some consolation. Ivy wants to put me away more than ever…I wouldn't have thought the girl could despise me more than she already did, but there you have it." She shrugged off her pain as if it was nothing, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw the slight tremor in her left hand as she reached for the creamers again.

I had imagined many times what I would say and what I would feel if Carmen ever came back to me- the way you do when your heart gets broken so completely. I imagined scenarios where I was cool and distant. Or, alternately, full of righteous anger and blistering scorn. I never expected to feel pity. What else could I feel for this woman caught in a vicious cycle, able to escape from anything except the prison she had created for herself.

Perhaps aware that she had already said too much, Carmen swiftly redirected the conversation. She gestured to the street outside, where two punks were getting in a fight. "I don't like your neighborhood. It's not very safe, Alex."

Her hypocrisy was laughable. "It's what I can afford. And I like the scene here."

Her blue eyes turned soft. "Are you all right? Do you need money?"

Oh, I was not going to let her do that to me. "I get by. I'm fine. Really."

She wouldn't let it go. "I have a place on the Upper West side. Pre-war. Large windows, lots of light. I don't use it very often. I'd like it better if I knew you were safe." It almost sounded like a plea coming from her.

I raised my eyebrows. Ivy was right; the woman was hopelessly fickle. "I'm not a bird in a cage, remember?" I said, letting her own words return to her like a boomerang.

"No, of course you're not." She took the blow with grace, but her eyes dimmed with disappointment. Then her mood spun on a dime as she pulled something glossy from inside her pocket. It was the invitation to my gallery show. How she had procured it…well, I guess she wasn't the world's greatest thief for nothing. "What's this, by the way? 'Scarlet Women'?" she asked playfully.

I blushed. "I didn't come up with the title. I hope you're not angry…"

"Why would I be angry? I always said your work should hang in a museum," she toyed.

What she was hinting at was unthinkable. If my coffee cup hadn't been empty, I might have dumped its contents in her lap. "Carmen, if you care for me at all, don't show up at my gallery show. Please."

A wicked look came into her eyes. "Oh, I wouldn't dream of crashing your opening. I promise."

I knew better than to trust her or waste time trying to reason with her. I snatched the invitation back and tossed a few wrinkled dollars on the table. "Save the mind games for Zack and Ivy, Carmen. They don't do anything for me. Good-bye," I told her and beat it toward the door. Because just once I wanted to be the one that left her, that made her feel abandoned and rejected.

I stalked off and made it halfway down the block before she caught up to me. "Alex, wait," Carmen called. I spun around in spite of myself, eyes teary and blazing. "You forgot your gloves." They were threadbare things with holes in them. I needed new ones, but didn't want to spend the money. "These will never do. It's too cold," she said softly. She took off her own velvety black ones, gloves that had probably committed hundreds of robberies, and gently tucked them around my hands. I stood there stupidly in that moment, totally undone, as she wound her red cashmere scarf around my neck. She pulled me in to her embrace and all my hard-won resistance melted away. Carmen's lips were soft, but all her kisses tasted like goodbye.

I turned and fled before I lost myself to her for good


	6. Epilogue: Thaw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final installment. Thank you for reading! And if you enjoy my stories, please review. It's the fuel that keeps me going!

It was the evening before big gallery show. I had been looking forward to putting on the last of the finishing touches, calling it a night and going to bed early. Instead, as the clock inched toward eleven, I was stuck at the gallery with a score of NYPD and two familiar and disgruntled ACME detectives. Ivy and Zack were convinced Carmen was going to hit Enzo's gallery tonight and make off with one of my paintings. The only person excited about this prospect was Enzo, who was convinced that if Carmen stole one of my paintings, it would make my career.

"Carmen's been on real artistic kick lately. Exclusively female artists. Artemisia Gentileschi, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frieda Kahlo. She just snagged Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party this morning," Zack explained.

I shook my head. "I don't understand. Those things she stole are masterpieces. I'm a nobody… my paintings are worth nothing."

"Well, they're worth something to Carmen. Which is the only thing that matters," Ivy muttered.

Zack took out a small figurine of an elephant. It looked like Dumbo from the Disney cartoon and had the Latin word caritas inscribed on a collar around its neck. "This is the clue she left for us."

"A ceramic elephant led you here? Are you sure you have the right place?" I asked, incredulous.

"Elementary," Zack puffed up. I could tell he was quite proud at cracking this clue. "We were stuck until I remembered that Dumbo is an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, a neighborhood in New York. And caritas is Latin for "charity." He looked at me. "That's your real name, isn't it? Charity Winthrop."

"Yes." Charity Winthrop sounded like someone who might have turned tricks on the Mayflower. "I changed it- It wasn't a very good name for an escort."

"It's not a bad name for an artist," Ivy told me strangely. "And I remembered from the surveillance reports I had read that you were planning an exhibition."

"Put it all together- Charity Winthrop in DUMBO, a budding female artist that Carmen has taken quite an interest in," Zack finished.

I shrugged. "If you say so." I wandered away to adjust the height of one of my paintings. Ivy and Zack's presence made me nervous. I had never told ACME about my most recent run-in with Carmen and I feared that Ivy with her sharp green eyes and finely tuned bullshit detector would somehow be able to see right through me. I regretted my decision now. At the time, I hadn't relished being used by ACME to bait the hook to catch Carmen Sandiego. Mostly because I wasn't entirely sure that if I encountered the thief again, I would be able to withstand the pull of her gravity a second time.

I still have her gloves and scarf in a box under my bed. I know I should throw them away, give them to Goodwill or something, instead of holding onto them like some kind of unholy relic.

Zack followed me as I gave every last painting in the gallery a once over. When we stopped in front of one of the largest paintings I had done- a nude, oil on canvas, of a woman we both knew quite well, he blushed. "Um, is this one from life or from memory?"

"From memory."

"It's…uh…very striking." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'm going to go…check the exits. Over there."

I tried not to take pleasure in his discomfort, but couldn't help smiling a little. I wondered then if this was the painting Carmen wanted. I had learned that beneath the flashy red trenchcoat lay a very private woman. And I doubted she would appreciate being put on display…literally naked…for all the world to see. Or was there another she planned to take?

I found Ivy standing before a scene I'm sure she remembered: two redheads mirroring each other on either side of an interrogation room. The detective looked haggard and I watched as she drained a can of soda and crushed it in her fist. I don't know what made me say it, but I felt she needed to know. "She really loves you, you know."

The young woman shook her head and snorted in derision.

"Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't true," I told her.

The detective ran a hand through her short red hair and turned to me, heartache and disappointment written all over her face. "This," she gestured widely, encompassing the robbery about to happen and years of a chase that never ended, "is not the behavior of someone who loves me." My double paused. "It's not the behavior of someone who loves you either," she said quietly.

Strange, how two things that were so opposite, could both be true.

I never got a chance to say any more, for in that moment all the lights in the entire block went out. The gallery and the street outside were pitch black. "Stay here," Ivy whispered. The next few minutes were pure chaos; detectives and police ran about with flashlights in confusion. I could hear the sounds of a helicopter rotor beating above us. A smoke grenade went off somewhere near the back door. And in the darkness I felt an arm wrap around my waist and the warmth of a body press into my back. "Well done. Very well done," a husky female voice breathed in my ear. And I half-feared and half-prayed in that fraction of a second that she had come to steal me away as well.

I spun to face her, but she had vanished.

When the power came back on, we discovered that one of my paintings had disappeared and Carmen along with it. Ironically, it was my favorite, the one entitled "Thaw." Two women on the steps of a museum in early spring; the promise of new life after the winter's cold. That perfect moment when the story had yet to unfold, when a happy ending was still possible.

For Zack and Ivy, Carmen left a clue, which sent them sprinting on the next leg of her merry chase. For me she left a rose, petals as deep and as red as blood, thorns sharper than a knife.


End file.
